“Are you distressed you aren’t with child?” he asked and I forced another swallow down a now swollen throat.
God.
Men.
In any world, they were totally clueless.
“No,” I answered, my voice croaky.
“Then would you care to share why you walked through the snow to speak with me?”
“You’re away on an important errand,” I reminded him. “It can wait.”
“I’m not fond of leaving women weeping in my bedchamber.”
“I’m not weeping,” I informed him and it was the truth.
I wanted to weep. I was going to weep when the big gorgeous hot guy who didn’t want me anymore finally was “away.” And sure, there were tears in my eyes.
But I wasn’t weeping.
“Madeleine, your eyes are swimming with tears.”
Suddenly, I was done with this.
“Apollo, just let me go so you can go.”
“Speak,” he demanded.
I twisted my arm in his hold, repeating quietly, “Please, let me go.”
“Madeleine”—he dipped his face to mine, definitely impatient now and not remotely— “speak.”
“I made a mistake,” I whispered.
“In coming here?” he asked.
“In marrying Pol.”
He went still. He was right, my eyes were swimming in tears so he was hazy, but he went so still, I could feel it.
“I have this…thing about me.” My mouth kept going. “It’s a weakness. A failing, really. And I…well, it led me to Pol. Actually, it led to a lot of bad things but they all came through Pol. Because of this flaw, I didn’t make the right decisions. I didn’t listen to people who were telling me things I should hear. I saw what I wanted and went for it, consequences be damned.”
He said nothing, didn’t move, didn’t take his hand off me.
So my mouth kept going.
“My father told me. He told me that I shouldn’t marry Pol. And the first time it was bad, really bad in a way I knew it wasn’t going to get better it was only going to get worse, I should have driven myself to the hospital. Instead, I drove myself to my parents’ house.” I took a shuddering breath and slid my eyes to his shoulder. “He opened the door to me, one eye swelling shut, my nose bleeding, every breath shooting fire through me because my ribs were broken, he took one look at me and shut the door in my face.”
Apollo did something then, his hand tightened around my arm.
But that was it.
“I don’t know…I don’t know how to be taken care of,” I stammered my admission. “Because I’ve never had that. And looking back, my father was always that way. He was a bus driver and my mom worked too. But she made sure to rush home and have dinner on the table because that was what he expected. She worked as many hours as he did and still, she cooked dinner, did the dishes, the laundry, the shopping, cleaned the house. His job was driving buses, watching TV and complaining about everything under the sun all the time. The president and his policies. The Seahawks offensive coach. The number of Japanese cars on the road. I guess she did what she did, cowing to his every whim, just so she didn’t have to listen to him bitch if she didn’t.”
I shook my head again, eyes still to Apollo’s shoulder, and kept blathering.
“That negativity…constant,” I kept on. “My mother, by the time I could cogitate, was buried under it. So buried, she was barely even there. It consumed the air we breathed. She seemed to just drift through life with him, I swear, like she was doing her time, waiting for it to be over.”